#Mirrorball has my heart with full context

[alexturntable]

Ok so from that interview do we gain any more insight into what Mirrorball means? Is he saying it's like fragments (the way a it's made up of lots of tiny mirrors). So self reflection or the mirrorball is a song? It's too early and I'm short circuiting!

I’ve been thinking about this since I re-read that interview. Here is the full quote for context:

"I always wanted to use the word ‘Colorama’ in a song ever since I saw Antonioni’s Blow Up. It was an unplugged neon light at the back of my mind for years. Some lyrics are declarations of love or hate written in blood or carved in a bus stop, in need of little or no melodic illumination. Some, I believe, are there almost entirely to facilitate it. If I ever thought about it at all I’m sure I used to think the melody was the vessel that carried the lyrics but more recently it has occurred to me that the opposite is often true.

The problem with the neon sign analogy is that neon signs are invariably bolted to the wall and full of gas. Melody seems as though its poured rather than sprayed and doesn’t feel as though whatever holds it ought to be fixed to anything.

I sometimes imagine each word to be made using a three dimensional open-top glass alphabet. Each letter built to harness and transport the mirror ball liquid marble of the melody. When the ‘substance’ fills up the syllables they seem to shimmer and become weightless. With the addition of close harmony I see colours swirl together, parts of the lyrics glow and the way in which they float suggests that something like the ‘star gate’ sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey is happening deep inside them out of view.”

So in this neon light analogy the letters are like containers made of glass which are meant to transport the melody. The melody is a "mirror ball liquid marble". Mirror balls reflect lights directed at them in all directions and liquid marble would create this effect of colours swirling together which when put together would look something like the star gate sequence he mentions. So I guess what we can understand from this is that in this analogy the mirror ball is part of the substance that represents the melody which fills the lyrics.

In There'd better be a Mirrorball, he may mean that he hopes that there will be "melodic illumination" or music accompanying this separation he's describing. After listening to Body Paint I feel like Mirrorball could also be a self-refelction song, probably the whole album. So maybe the "relationship" he seems to be ending is actually his relationship with the current persona he's been putting on that he's moving on from to start the process of writing a new album. That's why he starts with "don't get emotional that ain't like you". Maybe it was easier in the past to get rid of a persona but as he gets older it's more difficult to do so. "Yesterday's still leaking through the roof / that's nothing new" some parts of the previous persona are still present but it's always been this way. "I know I promised this is what I wouldn't do / somehow giving it the old romantic fool / seems to better suit the mood" he never wanted to write gooey songs or direct, staright-forward lyrics but now maybe he is.

"So if you wanna walk me to the car / you oughta know I'll have a heavy heart / so can we please be absolutely sure / that there's a mirrorball?" If the old persona wants to walk him to The Car, meaning the new album, he will be sad about parting with the old one so he wants to be really sure that this it's worth it, that there is a really good melody / song to use for this new era. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that this could be the same mirror ball metaphor he had in mind when he made that analogy in 2016 and this is how I would interpret it but it could also be a complete coincidence that he had used that word before. Either way it's fascinating to read the words he uses, his brain will never seize to amaze me.